Dell Claims "Thinnest & Lightest" 16in Crown with Latitude Z600

Dell is all aflutter today in announcing its latest thin and light laptop, the Latitude Z600. Following along similar lines to the company's much sought after Adamo, the Latitude Z range looks to create a very high-end option for business users.

Based on a 16in, 1,600 x 900 LED backlit display and clad in a soft-touch 'black cherry' finish, prices for the 20.1mm thick, 2.0kg machine start at £1,319 excluding VAT and shipping. This clearly makes it a high-ticket item, but Dell hopes the highly refined design and a number of innovative features will justify the expense.
Such innovative features include the FaceAware Lock-Out system, which uses the webcam to detect when you've left your machine, automatically locking it and requiring a password to unlock it again. You can also scan business cards using the webcam, capturing the data on them and adding people to your contacts.

This system also sees the belated appearance of Dell's Latitude ON instant-on OS, which was actually announced the best part of a year ago. Unlike most vanilla implementations of 'instant-on' systems, though, Latitude ON is based on its own ARM based sub-system, with an independent Wi-Fi module, processor and 512MB of memory to run off.
Essentially it's like a mobile phone inside your laptop, giving you access to email (Microsoft Exchange), calendars, contacts and the web. Of course this means very long battery life, since the ARM processor makes a minute impact on the system as a whole. It'll cost you an extra £199, but for mobile workers its convenience (and frugalness) could be a godsend.

Another much touted feature is what Dell is calling EdgeTouch, a touch sensitive menu that's integrated into the bezel of the display to give you quick access to regularly used applications.
One final trick comes with the optional stand, which rather like the Palm Pre's Touchstone charging dock can wirelessly charge your laptop using inductive technology. This charging stand, which also acts as a dock for your peripherals, will cost you a further £159 - it's probably best you put away your calculator now.

For processing you can choose between 1.4GHz (SU9400) and 1.6GHz (SU9600) Intel Core 2 Duo processors, while you can have up to 4GB of DDR3 RAM and a 256GB SSD - the standard being 64GB.